Tag: enzymes

Manipulation of an organism’s metabolism lies at the heart of metabolic engineering

August 7, 2023

Since 2000s, there has been much interest in the use of metabolic engineering to create organisms able to synthesize a variety of useful chemical compounds such as biofuels, drugs, and speciality chemicals. So, what is metabolic engineering? At the heart of metabolic engineering is a sequence of carefully choreographed genetic engineering steps that express new … More Manipulation of an organism’s metabolism lies at the heart of metabolic engineering

Protein engineering as tool to improve enzymes

July 28, 2023

Enzymes are at the heart of modern biotechnology with wide-reaching and varied applications in daily life. However, most enzymes are optimized for use in the cellular context, and perform poorly when employed in other application areas or scenarios. One example is the enzymes in modern washing powder. Hence, protein engineering may be used to improve … More Protein engineering as tool to improve enzymes

Silent gene clusters require expression to confirm functionality and types of molecules produced

November 23, 2020

Bioinformatics approaches for annotating sequenced genomes could annotate genes and gene cluster that may be transcriptionally silent. Since a gene product such as an enzyme is needed to confirm functionality through biochemical assays, a transcriptionally silent gene cluster would need to be activated to help elucidate and confirm its function. One approach would be to … More Silent gene clusters require expression to confirm functionality and types of molecules produced

Non-selective chemical reactions require protecting groups to guide the synthesis of complex molecules

October 9, 2020

Multi-step chemical synthesis typically requires different protecting and de-protecting steps to guide the synthesis of complex molecules. This arises due to the non-selective nature of many chemical reactions where, for example, an oxidising reagent would oxidise multiple functional groups of a compound. Thus, protecting groups are installed on particular functional group for specific steps of … More Non-selective chemical reactions require protecting groups to guide the synthesis of complex molecules

Metabolites connect different metabolic pathways

September 21, 2020

Metabolic pathways are not silos. In contrast, metabolic pathways interconnect and forms networks with distinctive characteristics. But, in this conceptualization, it is not common to realise that metabolites are the key nodes that allow one metabolic pathway to interconnect with another. At a broader scale, the ability of one metabolite to serve as substrates to … More Metabolites connect different metabolic pathways

Cofactor synthesis pathways are requisite for cellular metabolism

May 20, 2020

Enzymes are biocatalysts that perform the reactions essential for life. However, some enzymes require cofactors for function. Such cofactors include NAD+, NADH, NADP+, NADPH, FAD, and FADH2, which are complex biomolecules requiring their own dedicated biosynthesis pathways. Hence, biosynthetic pathways for producing cofactors are requisite for cellular metabolism and could not be knockdown or knockout … More Cofactor synthesis pathways are requisite for cellular metabolism

Differing cellular physiology meant that drugs are metabolized differently in different individuals

November 24, 2019

Individuals differ at the genome, proteome, transcriptome and metabolome level. What potentiated these differences are fundamental differences in the genetic complement of individuals where mutations at particular genes as well as single nucleotide polymorphism result in differences in gene expression and enzyme function that cascade to observable differences at the metabolite level. Ultimately, dysregulation at … More Differing cellular physiology meant that drugs are metabolized differently in different individuals

Personalized nutrition relies on personal genome information to tune the metabolic profile of individuals

May 27, 2019

Nutritional advice is often offered for the broad masses. However, observations of differing metabolic responses of individuals to the same types of food revealed differentiated responses of individuals to the same diet. This could be due to the differentiated metabolic responses of individuals potentiated by differing variants of enzymes and metabolic pathways. Thus, the mutations … More Personalized nutrition relies on personal genome information to tune the metabolic profile of individuals

What does it mean when a pathway or protein is conserved?

April 7, 2019

Proteins or pathways important to cellular function are frequently shown to be conserved through structural or sequence analysis. But, what does it mean for a pathway or protein to be conserved and what is the biological mechanism that allow it to happen?   For a protein to be conserved across different species and domains of … More What does it mean when a pathway or protein is conserved?

Bioretrosynthesis for the manufacturing of complex molecules from simple substrates

November 29, 2018

Development of chemical synthetic schemes for a particular molecule is typically carried out in the retrosynthetic fashion by organic chemists. Specifically, organic chemists analysed the chemical structure of the molecule of interest, identify possible reaction schemes capable of generating the various functional groups present in the molecule, and finally sequence the chemical reactions in a … More Bioretrosynthesis for the manufacturing of complex molecules from simple substrates